


Fireworks in the 23rd Century

by vulcansmirk



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-05
Updated: 2013-07-05
Packaged: 2017-12-17 18:28:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/870627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vulcansmirk/pseuds/vulcansmirk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The <i>Enterprise</i> crew has to attend an Independence Day party at Starfleet HQ. Kirk, bored out of his skull, convinces Spock to ditch the party in favor of other occupations.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fireworks in the 23rd Century

**Author's Note:**

> A slightly-late Fourth of July treat. Happy Independence Day to all of you in America.
> 
> I got really into the history at the beginning there... Sorry about that. I promise it gets more interesting.

The United Federation of Planets had one really major holiday, and that was the anniversary of the signing of the Vulcan-Terran Hegemony Accord. Famously, the signing had taken place on the fourth of July in the Terran calendar, an indulgence on the part of the Vulcan High Command. The date had long been one of importance on Earth; before the formation of the Federation’s most profitable alliance, it had marked the drafting of the Pangea Proclamation, which united all Terran lands beneath the dominion of a United Earth government, a government that would eventually include all the human colonies in the current Federation; before that, it had marked the fateful day in the year 1776 when the British colonies on Earth’s North American continent officially adopted their Declaration of Independence, extracting themselves from the tyranny of their forebears and establishing the United States of America. To Earthlings, July 4 had accrued a special significance over the centuries, celebrating the culture and the spirit that would eventually pervade all collective human endeavors. And, Kirk supposed, some silver-tongued diplomat must have convinced the Vulcan High Command that the request to sign the Accord on that day in the year 2063 was an honor and a credit to the alliance. From 1776 all the way to 2259, July 4 had been known as Independence Day.

Starfleet always held a charity gala on the night of the fourth. Starship crews whose missions took them too far from Starfleet HQ in San Francisco weren’t required to attend, but unfortunately, come July, the _Enterprise_ was delivering a new arsenal of vaccines to the human colony on Mars, and so the crew received orders to report to the old opera house for the event. Dress uniforms were required; however, the event coordinators tried to do something new every year, so when the _Enterprise_ docked above the planet, Kirk and his crew found new sets of dress clothes waiting for them. This year, it seemed, the coordinators had chosen a Roaring-Twenties theme.

Dutifully, Captain Kirk was in attendance at the gala in the opera house, outfitted in a tasteful, clean-cut three-piece suit whose vest and bowtie gleamed with the gold of his command position. He stood at the edge of a huge, circular room whose walls and ceiling were entirely transparent, built from a synthetic glass-polymer alloy. The clear ceiling arced so far above their heads that it seemed almost not to exist at all, except that Kirk found the air to be stuffy and stagnant, cut off from the outside. Thousands of softly-glowing bulbs of yellow light hovered all around and above, illuminating the proceedings in some small facsimile of candlelight. Beyond it all, the stars winked down from an endless velvet midnight.

Kirk stared at those stars and sighed. Beside him, McCoy grunted.

“Come on, it’s not so bad,” the doctor reassured in his gruff, stilted way. “It’s only a couple hours. We’ll be back on the ship before you know it.”

Kirk looked back at his friend. Bones’s suit was black with pinstripes, cut to accentuate his broad shoulders and chest, and his vest and bowtie popped in the powder-blue of the medical department. Kirk might have laughed to see the sardonic doctor in so cheery a color, except that the blue brought out the lighter tones in his topaz eyes. McCoy definitely stood out in this crowd.

Sighing, again, Kirk allowed, “I guess you’re right. It’s just a long couple hours, is all.”

“I’m sure,” murmured Bones distractedly.

Kirk followed McCoy’s gaze, and found Dr. Marcus in the center of the room. She hardly looked like a physicist tonight, outfitted in a floorlength navy dress that swirled and glittered as she moved. Currently, she was dancing with Scotty, who grinned above a fiery red bowtie; Carol grinned, too, all sparkling white teeth and shining blonde hair and bright blue eyes.

Kirk nudged McCoy’s arm. “Go get her,” he smiled. “Come on, I’m not stopping you.”

Bones looked affronted. He crossed his arms over his chest and huffed. “Dammit, man, I’m a doctor, not a dancer,” he grumbled.

“Go on,” Kirk laughed.

After a few more seconds of grumbling, McCoy uncrossed his arms, glanced at his captain, and started across the room. If Kirk wasn’t mistaken, he thought the doctor even looked a little nervous.

Kirk watched as McCoy cut in between Carol and Mr. Scott, the latter of whom just nodded and turned to Uhura, who had just walked up in a stunning satiny maroon number. McCoy took Carol’s hand with a stiff smile, and Carol beamed in kind. Uhura smiled shyly at Scotty, who, judging by his rapidly-moving lips, babbled nervously back as he took her hand in one of his and placed his other at her waist.

Smiling a little himself, Kirk looked away from the scene, and happened to glance toward the door, where his first officer had just walked in. His heart stuttered.

Spock was wearing a suit whose jet black material somehow managed to absorb the light around him, and never before had Kirk been more aware of the Vulcan’s chiseled chest or long, lithe legs. Rather than a bowtie, Spock wore a navy dress shirt, and no vest; the first few buttons hung open, framing his pale throat. His pointed ears disappeared beneath a black fedora.

Spotting his captain across the room, Spock made his way over in long, smooth, crisp steps. As the distance closed and his exposed collarbone came into clearer focus, Kirk gulped.

“Aah, Spock, you made it,” said Kirk with a smile, breathing as steadily as he could.

His first simply raised an eyebrow. “Yes, captain,” he agreed. “As did you.”

Kirk rolled his eyes. “Barely.”

The Andorian ambassador walked up then, and the two of them were occupied. Introductions were made, discussion was held, and Kirk thought the whole thing rather dry and tedious. The tinkling sounds of clinking glass and laughter and diplomacy trickled in around them.

Ten minutes later, the ambassador moved on, and Kirk heaved a world-weary sigh.

Feeling reckless, he turned to Spock. “Do you wanna get out of here?”

Spock started. “Out? I have only just arrived.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Kirk dismissed, waving a hand haphazardly. “Come on, we can slip out the back. I promise no one’ll miss us.”

Spock seemed torn for a moment. Kirk looked straight at him, eyes wide and imploring. Finally, the Vulcan relented.

“I suppose we can make our exit, if you wish it,” he said.

Kirk grinned. “Yes! Perfect. Okay, follow me.”

He led his first in a sinuous path through the crowd. They were stopped more than once by dignitaries, journalists, and on one narrow occasion Admiral Komack, who glowered down his nose at Kirk as if he knew exactly what was going on. Finally, they found a narrow corridor tucked into one corner of the room, and the two of them slipped silently down it.

The walls here were not transparent, and the passage, in fact, was rather poorly lit. Nevertheless, as they neared the exit, they were spotted by Chekov and Sulu, who had similarly escaped the hubbub and now sat on a bench talking excitedly to one another. They fell silent as their commanding officers approached; Sulu seemed about to speak, but Kirk just smiled and raised a finger to his lips. Navigator and helmsman both visibly relaxed, and smiled back. Then Kirk and Spock were out the door.

Kirk didn’t stop once they were outside. He was halfway across the lawn when Spock called after him, “Captain, where are we going?”

“You’ll see,” Kirk grinned, and he stopped, waited for Spock to catch up, then grabbed his first’s hand and began tugging him along behind. The captain’s heart hammered happily against his ribs as Spock returned his grip.

Five minutes later, they had reached their final destination. Kirk stepped from grass to concrete, a cool wind coming off the water and ghosting across his cheeks. He peered up at the stars through the suspensions on the bridge, and his grin widened, splitting his face.

“Captain, what are we doing here?” Spock inquired, sounding somewhat petulant, but Kirk merely tightened his grip and coaxed his first officer forward. They stepped onto the Golden Gate Bridge and Kirk wouldn’t let them stop until they’d reached almost the exact halfway mark. The waves hissed below them, the stars glimmered above them, and an anticipatory quiet hung in the air. Kirk released Spock’s hand and stepped up to the railing.

“Captain, I fail to see the purpose in coming all the way out here at so late an hour – ”

“Shhh,” said Kirk, reaching behind him for Spock’s arm and dragging the man forward so they stood side-by-side on the edge. “It’s about to start.”

Almost as he said the words, a fanfare rang from the direction they had come from. The Federation emblem materialized in the sky.

“What is about to start?” wondered Spock aloud.

Kirk glanced at him, watching the light play across his cheekbones. “Are you telling me you’ve never been at HQ on the fourth of July?” he asked, incredulous.

Spock would never answer, however – it began with a loud noise and did not stop being loud and noisy for ten minutes. What it was, of course, was the annual Starfleet-sanctioned fireworks show. Strictly speaking, it wasn’t _just_ a fireworks show, it was a combination of holograms and incendiary liquid compounds in addition to the classic Independence Day fireworks, but that seemed like a mouthful.

Kirk was as excited as ever to watch the show. He’d seen it several times as a boy, and spent every summer between terms at the Academy living and working in San Francisco so that he wouldn’t miss it. But this time, he found himself spending quite a bit more time watching Spock than the lights in the sky. The holograms depicted the ancient Greek myth of Persephone and Hades, aided by the well-timed explosions of good old sulfur bombs and the peculiar ghostly phosphorescence of the liquid compounds. Spock maintained composure as best he could, but could not bar the wonder from his eyes, almost the same wonder that Kirk saw when they discovered a new celestial phenomenon or a new lifeform and Spock was allowed to take readings. Near the end of the show, the lights formed into a hand in the shape of the ta’al, and Spock griped about cavalier treatment of ancient and dignified cultures, much to Kirk’s amusement.

“Worth playing hooky, don’t you think?” Kirk yelled as the obligatory pandemonium of the final sequence got underway.

“I am unfamiliar with the term ‘hooky,’ ” Spock yelled back, and as he turned to look at his captain, Kirk’s heart shuddered to a halt. Suddenly, he realized how very close Spock had allowed him to stand.

Unthinking, the captain reached up to lift the hat from Spock’s head, revealing his pointed ears, his angled eyebrows, and the shining black sheets of his hair. Spock gazed back at him with eyes whose deep brown was lit with flickering luminescence without, and something steadier, warmer, within.

Wordlessly, Kirk leaned in, met Spock’s lips with his own. He was testing the waters – no other part of them touched.

After a terrifying beat, like teetering for a moment on the edge of a cliff, Spock inclined his head just so, pressing warm, dry lips more forcefully together with Kirk’s. Kirk inhaled sharply; his fingers loosened until Spock’s hat tumbled to the ground, and forgot it instantaneously as he ran one hand up the length of Spock’s arm and tangled the fingers of the other in Spock’s hair. Spock turned them both until Kirk’s back pressed against the railing, then pushed forward until their chests were flush together, and Kirk felt dizzy. Spock’s hands found Kirk’s hips and gripped them, hard, and the hand Kirk had in Spock’s hair traveled down along Spock’s neck until his fingers slipped beneath the navy fabric of his shirt to rest on his bare chest. He nipped at Spock’s lower lip, and the other’s mouth opened immediately, his tongue guilelessly tangling with Kirk’s.

A few breathless moments, and Kirk pulled back. The cacophony of the fireworks show entered its dying stages. Spock looked with heavy-lidded eyes back at Kirk, gaze trained on Kirk’s lips. The captain smirked.

“Now _that,”_ he panted, “is what I call fireworks.”

His first looked perplexed for an instant, then pointedly unamused. He slid his hands from Kirk’s hips to his chest, the better to pin him to the railing as he descended on Kirk’s mouth once more.

Needless to say, the captain and his first officer didn’t make it back to the party.


End file.
